We can't write about Amazon products?

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   Learn Things Webposted 7 years ago

   I wrote a hub about music related gifts for kids and teens. One of the things I suggest is the Amazon Echo Dot. I also mentioned Amazon gift cards to purchase music. The hub is getting rejected due to "spammy content."   When I looked up what that means it mentions Amazon products. That seems like such a strange thing to restrict when Amazon is such a massive retailer with an increasing number of branded products and services. The Echo Dot is just one of nine gift ideas I suggest and the Amazon gift card is just one of several music related gift cards I suggest. Does this mean we can't ever write about Amazon products in any form?

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      Rochelle Frankposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I'm following this to see the responses.
      
      My Amazon earnings are very nice, and I had an especially good one today that had nothing to do with the ads. ...a $500 item. ( as you may know, if people click on an ad.... then go onto buy a completely different item, that counts as a sale for you . Sometimes you get lucky)
      
      I have never written a hub that is aimed  at selling one particular item. Doing that might be considered over promotional.....but I do have a couple that suggest products related to the problem being discussed. If people click on it...even just to take a look, they sometimes go on to buy something else.
      
      And I have had many other "unrelated " sales.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         You certainly can write a Hub aimed at selling just one item.   It's not considered overly promotional at all. You do have to describe the product and give a thorough review, that's all.

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            Rochelle Frankposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            That's good to know. Thanks.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Spammy elements does not mean Amazon products.   
      
      It has a few possible meanings.
      
      One is that you've linked to products or websites that are not sufficiently related to the title of the Hub.  It doesn't sound as though that's the problem in this case.
      
      Another is that you've linked to products or websites without giving sufficient reason for doing so.  So for instance, if it appears that you've simply chosen a bunch of products at random, that's not acceptable.  For every product you choose, you must include a carefully considered explanation as to why you're recommending that particular product.

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         Learn Things Webposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         What I did was recommend nine music related gifts for kids and teens. For each item, I gave some details and some things to consider. For example, for the Echo Dot, I went into some detail on what music streaming services will and won't work with it. That included Amazon's services. For the electric guitar, I discussed buying an adult size versus kids size depending on certain factors. I didn't link to any other sites and I only had two product capsules for Amazon. I think it may have been rejected because I went into some detail about Amazon streaming services available. But I think that was completely relevant and I don't feel I should have to leave it out to get approval because the purpose wasn't to spam. It was to inform.

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            Christy Kirwanposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            While we do allow gift idea articles like the one you describe, you must provide significant useful information about each product beyond what can be found in the product descriptions on Amazon or other sales sites. It's also a good idea to use your own photos of the products (or in this case, the kids and teens in your life enjoying them) if possible.

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               Learn Things Webposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Other than not using photos I completely wrote everything myself, didn't use any product info from anywhere else, provided a lot of useful info based on my experience of these products and still got rejected. It seems like using the word Amazon in describing the streaming options through the Echo was the problem. So I'd have to cut out useful info and therefore lower the quality of the hub to get approved. It's very frustrating.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Perhaps you should stick to talking about just the one product instead of trying to sell nine of them.  Nine is a bit much methinks.

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   stephenteacherposted 7 years ago

   I would imagine that if you play up the amazon bit, it might not be "spammy," but too much in competition with amazon. In other words, do people want to be directed right to amazon, or to a middle man page? Most people want to go directly there, or at least that's what google (or hub) would assume as well. Since the product is an amazon product, it's kind of a hard fit. I would ditch the word amazon, stick with just echo. I imagine including that word is a non-issue. An echo is an echo, and google (again perhaps hub) would show people amazon echo results with or without amazon. One might really need to do some creative writing if doing the amazon rainforest.

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   Alison Grahamposted 7 years ago

   I am hearing more and more that hubs need to only include Amazon products that the writer has personal experience of either directly or indirectly from family, friends, etc., so recommending Amazon products based only on the information found in the listing, it seems, is no longer acceptable. I'm not saying that this is the case with your Hub, just that this is what I have heard from Editors when my Hubs have been 'snipped'/edited for moving to Niche sites.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      You will hear the moderators say that. I suppose the question you have to ask yourself is, how do they know?
      
      If you have thoroughly researched a product and can give a good explanation of why you are recommending it (and you're not just spouting what Amazon said) then I'd challenge HubPages staff to spot the difference!  Unless they're going to be asking us for receipts next...

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         Alison Grahamposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I believe it must be the writing style - for example an impersonal review might say that product x is very good at getting stains out of fabric, a personal review might say that I found product x was really effective in getting a blackcurrant stain out of my best white cotton T shirt - I think that those differences could be detected by a computerized system?

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            Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Readers will detect anything spammy and Google is pretty good at detecting how readers react to a page. No one knows how the Google algorithm works but I would be amazed if it did not use dwell times, clicks on ads and general interaction with the page elements to assess the page's usefulness.
            
            I have written a few spammy pages myself, seen them fail and changed my ways.
            
            You can certainly get away with a whole bunch of Amazon ads but it needs some practice. At the very least your page needs to be reasonably original, not a stale rehash or in an area already well covered.

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      Learn Things Webposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I based it on experience and knowledge but I assume the moderation process is mainly computerized. I think if a person had looked at this they wouldn't have had any issues with it.

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